Here, the majority sides with the minority

[the_macnab]

My opinion on legalizing gay marriage was like my opinion on smoking bans. Neither is an issue I can get passionate enough about to vigorously campaign for. Once they are law, neither is an issue that I will ever support removing. Yes, of course I support equal rights for gays; I'm just ambivalent enough about marriage that one's "right to marry"

Comments

[inhumandecency]

On the other hand, if our representatives 1) don't see a compelling issue of minority rights, 2) don't think an issue is too complex for voters to be able to make a good decision, and 3) don't foresee tragic consequences of either outcome, I'd rather they just did what their constituents wanted. A referendum is probably the least efficient but most trustworthy way to find out what that is. Having representatives with a more direct-democracy bent would help make up for the various abominations of winner-take-all representation and the two-party system

[the_macnab]

Re: gay marriage. I have stopped viewing it as having much to do with marriage per se...

Exactly. Which is why it's so agonizing to watch the debate over the New Jersey ruling and subsequent legislation. Yet I think such a viewpoint is a minority one, on both sides of the issue.

To the extent that I think having this one "basis for assigning a wide variety of legal rights and privileges" is itself weird, arbitrary and annoying, reframing the issue that way doesn't do much for me. Besides, when people start cooing because someone's announced their engagement, how many people are thinking, "Wonderful! Now you can get on one another's health insurance plans and/or visit one another in the hospital!" Whenever we pretend that the legal corpus is the only, or even the main, thing that gays are fighting for, we're kind of lying to ourselves.

On the other hand...(snip)...I'd rather they just did what their constituents wanted.

Yes, obviously. Hence my prefacing that with, "To the extent that you buy that bill of goods every day...."

[inhumandecency]

If you see no compelling issue of minority rights, understand an issue and foresee no tragic consequences of either outcome, why not trust your representative, whom you have endorsed at the ballot box, to decide on it?

Because not everyone agrees with their representative on every single issue. For example, people who aren't really in favor of selling out the nation to religious fundamentalists, but who voted for W because they thought he'd beat the terrorists.

[the_macnab]

The thing that's bugging me here is this: I agree with you, not everyone agrees with their representative on every single issue. If that's a compelling argument for referendum, though, then what is your argument for representation in the first place? I'm sure you realize that "I want my representative to vote when we agree, and I want to vote directly when we disagree" is not an argument for having representatives

[lapsedmodernist]

I'm just ambivalent enough about marriage that one's "right to marry" leaves me cold.

it shouldn't in out sick country country with no universal health care, where the existing shitty health care is often tied to things like marriage and procreation, and laws re: same-sex DP coverage vary from state to state.

[the_macnab]

You are of course correct. This is the problem with something like lj: you post fragments of a larger conversation that you're having with yourself or others who aren't present, then people point out lacunae that are better thought of as things you were taking for granted.

So, per that sort-of-side-comment about the New Jersey ruling: I support, will campaign for, and will campaign for gays' receiving any benefit that has been tied to marriage. Child custody? Yep. Health insurance? Yep. Inheritance? Yep. Saying that it leaves me cold is not the same as saying that I don't or won't support it.

I liked the New Jersey ruling because it separated the two things out. On the one hand, it ruled that the state could not deny gay couples any benefits it gave to straight couples; on the other hand, it said that you didn't have to call it marriage. To the extent that I want a set of legal benefits for my partner, male or female, and to the extent that "marriage" still means a whole lot more than those things, I would like to disentangle that

[lexicat]

Ultimately, the government shouldn't be sanctioning marriage for anyone, only civil unions, and it should issue those to anyone. Does that sum up your opinion?

[chachachana]

hahaha!

[dr_pipe]

That's so obvious, to me, and hardly anyone says it!

I mean, come on. There are no states where gays are not allowed to "get married." They can have a ceremony. Their spiritual leader or community or family can agree that they are married. What they can't do is have a piece of paper from the county that says "Marriage Certificate" on it.

Why do we need a piece of paper like that? Instead, we should have a piece of paper from the county that says "You two are legally bonded for the purpose of sharing insurance, combining credit, etc." Any two or maybe more than two people who wish to tie themselves together that way should be able to. It's got nothing to do with marriage, and the government has no business regulating marriage.

[the_macnab]

I've written this elsewhere, but: floating around amid all the talk about weddings and civil unions and such is this idea that there's a thing called marriage that the church traditionally took care of, and this other group of things that the government applied to married couples, and therefore that the government shouldn't be talking about marriage because it's not its thingie. This is how we would like things to be, but it's historically inaccurate. The institution of marriage predates the separation of church and state, and so the church and the state have pretty equal claims on the institution. All of which is just me saying that it's more complicated than that. Marriage exists as a religious thing; it also exists as a legal thing, and not just because of confusing terminology.

[chachachana]

interesting conversation! thank you~